February 16
Welcome then, you stillness of the world of shades! I am content: once I lived like the gods — and nothing more is needed.
To the Fates
Listening mode
Welcome then, you stillness of the world of shades! I am content: once I lived like the gods — and nothing more is needed.
“If that works out just once, then it's fine.” You usually say things like this before something happens: before a piece of work, a journey, a conversation you have long put off. The sentence sounds modest, almost like a bargain. Only this one thing; you ask for nothing more.
Then it really does work out, and for a while the sentence holds true. You are content, and the contentment doesn't feel provisional. Yet after a few days a new wish makes itself felt, built in much the same way: once more, or a little further.
It's tempting, then, to dismiss the first sentence as self-deception. But perhaps it was only measuring something else. It didn't claim that afterwards you would want nothing more. It claimed that this one thing doesn't need a sequel to have its value. What succeeded remains a success, even if your longing won't accept it as an ending.
The reverse question is harder: is there anything of which you could already say today that it was enough, even if nothing more followed? The answer comes out differently depending on whether you look for it on a good evening or a tired one.
